If you’re a time-poor business owner, chances are social media marketing is at the bottom of your ‘to-do’ list. You know that it’s important for the success of your business but you don’t have the time to devote to doing it yourself.
That’s why it’s so important to have a social media strategy.
Creating a detailed plan for your social media presence will help you make the most of your time, and ensure that your messaging is always on point and maximising engagement with potential customers.
Here's a step-by-step guide to help you get started:
1. Set your objectives – decide what you are trying to achieve through social media
The first step in building an effective social media marketing strategy is to determine the objectives of your campaign. What do you want to achieve? It could be anything from increasing brand awareness, reaching a new target market, or creating engagement. Knowing what you’re aiming for will help guide the rest of the strategy.
For example, if you want to increase brand awareness, then you’ll need to focus on content and campaigns that will have the most impact in terms of reach and engagement. If your aim is to create engagement, then you’ll need to pay more attention to social listening and responding quickly to comments or messages.
Taking the time to define your objectives will help you create a strategy that is tailored to your goals and gives you the best chance of success.
2. Determine your ideal clients and tailor your messages accordingly
Now you can start to identify who your ideal clients are – aka your target market.
Who do you want to reach with your social media marketing strategy?
It's important to make sure that your target market aligns with those you’re trying to reach in the real world, such as clients and potential clients. This is why I call your target market your ideal clients.
To start, consider the age, gender, location and interests of your ideal clients. Knowing this information will help you tailor your messages to the right people.
Then you need to understand what makes your ideal clients choose you, your products or services, over any other business. This is called the psychographics of your ideal clients.
When you understand why your best clients choose your business or products, what motivates them, and why they would choose you over others, you can create messages that really connect with your ideal clients – your target market.
You can read more about the basics of defining your target market here.
Once you have your ideal clients identified, create content that speaks to them and their needs. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different types of posts and content, as this can help you better understand what resonates with your target market.
3. Analyse your current performance on social media platforms
The next step is to decide which social media platforms are best suited to reaching your ideal clients. This will depend on who your ideal clients are and what type of content you plan to share.
For example, Twitter may be the most appropriate platform for a tech company that wants to reach other businesses, while Instagram could work better for a retail business wanting to engage with its customers.
Once you have identified which platforms are best for your ideal clients, the next thing is to analyse how well they are currently performing. This will involve looking at metrics such as likes, comments and shares on posts, followers, reach and engagement.
Most social media platforms have insights and analytics you can access. Or you can use tools like Later, or Sprout Social, to monitor and measure your performance across different social media platforms. These tools can provide in-depth insights into the performance of your posts and followers, as well as competitor analysis so you can benchmark yourself against them.
When analysing your current performance on social media, it’s important to look at both the positive and negative numbers. Make sure you identify any areas where you are underperforming or performing poorly – this can help you to focus your efforts on improving these areas.
You should also take a look at the content you are producing and how you are presenting it. Are you using high-quality visuals? Is the language used in your posts engaging? Are you providing useful, relevant information and stories? These kinds of questions will help give an overall picture of the content mix you should use.
4. Identify the right content mix for each platform
Now that you’ve selected the platforms you’re going to use, it’s time to start creating content.
First, you’ll need to consider what type of content is the most relevant for your ideal clients. Think about the topics and issues they are interested in and create content that speaks to them. Consider what kind of posts will be most likely to engage them – this could include blog posts, images, videos, or other creative formats.
It’s also important to remember that each platform has its own content preferences and best practices. So, make sure you tailor your content for different platforms.
When crafting your content mix, it's worth following the 80/20 rule. This means dedicating 80% of your content to the three magic e's of social media, Educational, Entertaining, or Engaging posts. While the remaining 20% can be promotional, focusing on promoting your services. This approach helps maintain a healthy balance between providing value to your followers and showcasing your offerings.
It’s also important to stick to a consistent posting schedule so that your brand is seen as reliable and trustworthy. Remember, consistency builds trust – so make sure to post regular, quality content, and engage with your followers.
Read more about 7 types of social media posts that get results here.
By taking the time to identify the right content mix for each platform, you’ll be able to create an effective social media marketing strategy that generates results. It takes some trial and error but it’s worth it in the long run!
At the end of the day, creating great content will help you reach your ideal clients and build that all-important know, like, and trust factor.
5. Establish a content calendar for posting regular updates
Once you have created the content, the next step is to decide when and how often to post it. This may depend on the type of content you’re creating and the size of your team, but a good rule of thumb is to choose quality over quantity.
Don't post for the sake of putting content out there. You want to deliver value for your ideal clients. You want them to engage with your content and therefore connect with your business. So it's important not to put garbage out just because the “experts” tell you to post once a day or 3 times a day or…
you get the idea.
The best way to ensure that you’re posting on a regular basis is to create a content calendar. This can be as simple or complex as you like; it's important to find what works for you and your team. A great starting point is to look at the types of content you want to post and how often – such as a blog post once a week or an image twice a day. You can also plan ahead for special days and holidays, such as Easter, Mother's Day or Valentine’s Day.
Once you've got the content calendar in place, make sure to stick to it. You'll find that people will come to expect you to be sharing your quality information, updates, and content regularly, so it's important to be consistent.
Content calendars are a great way to plan ahead and ensure you’re creating content that is valuable for your ideal clients.
Your content calendar should include topics for each post, when they should be shared, and which networks they should be posted on.
Remember, the key is to stay consistent and provide quality content. That way, you can build trust with your ideal clients and create a strong relationship that will bring them back for more!
6. Measure and track the success of each post
Finally, it’s important to track and measure the results of your social media marketing strategy. This will help you determine which strategies are working and which ones need to be tweaked or adjusted.
Now what you track and measure may vary dependent on the social media platform you are using.
Some common social media metrics to consider are:
Conversions – Conversion is a crucial metric to consider. Keep track of the number of website visitors from your social media profiles, purchases, and the number of customers generated from social media ads. It's also important to monitor other significant actions taken by your followers, like signing up for a newsletter.
Social Channels Revenue – By giving a dollar value to your social conversions, you can determine the amount of money your social media has made for your business.
Volume and Sentiment – The volume metric tells you how much people are talking about your business or brand online. It counts mentions. Sentiment analysis shows you how people feel about your brand. To measure sentiment, you keep an eye on messages and relevant keywords online.
Follower growth rate – By keeping an eye on the follower growth rate, you can identify social media profiles that are growing quickly. This information helps you determine which profiles may require more attention or adjustment.
Impressions – Impressions tell you how many times your post appears in someone's social media feed. They give you an idea of how many people saw your posts, even if they didn't click, comment, or interact with them. When impressions are low – your posts are appearing in front of fewer of your ideal clients, so you may need to adjust your content.
Reach – Reach refers to the number of different individuals who have seen your content on social media. It indicates how widely your content has been shared and how many people have come across it. Similar to impressions, when your reach is low less of your ideal clients are seeing your content.
Engagement – Engagement helps you gauge how well your social media efforts are connecting with your followers. Successful engagement demonstrates that your content is effectively capturing the attention and interest of your ideal clients, which builds that know, like, and trust factor, which ultimately generates sales.
By tracking these metrics, you can gain valuable insights that will help you further refine your social media marketing strategy and improve its overall performance.
It's important to remember that it may take some time before you can really start to see results. By monitoring your progress regularly, you will be able to make any necessary changes quickly and efficiently.
Unlock your potential with a social media marketing strategy
With the right strategy, a good eye for detail and regular tracking of your progress, you can create an effective social media marketing campaign that will help you reach more potential customers and increase your revenue. So don’t be afraid to get creative, experiment, and tweak your strategy as you go. When done right, the results can be truly amazing.
Creating a successful social media marketing strategy doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming.
Through careful planning and a few simple steps, you can develop an effective strategy that will help your business reach its goals.
Remember, if you need help, I can make it easier and more efficient, so you can focus on running your business.
Get in touch today to see how we can help you build an effective social media strategy that will get results!
